Reportedly he's only in Moscow for a pit stop, en route to Cuba/Venezuela/Equador. Looks like this story is going to dominate the news for a couple more weeks.

kNIOKAS

06-23-2013 10:45 AM

Re: NSA whistleblower Snowden arrives in Moscow

Very happy for Snowden and **** US government. :cheers:

RidonKs

06-23-2013 11:24 AM

Re: NSA whistleblower Snowden arrives in Moscow

i wonder if HK is playing games or if they genuinely didn't have enough info to extradite.. the charges of espionage are pretty easily dismissed i think by a neutral gov't but the theft of government documents is pretty much universal around the world im pretty sure. then again they might just be toying with the US and trying to extract a confession re cyber warfare like that last paragraph suggests

anyway, this was bound to dominate the news cycle for many more weeks, the Guardian (and to a lesser extent the Post) has been planning this thing for months -- Greenwald will likely be revealing more in the next week or so. he's always had major gripes with the MSM so he's probably looking (forward) to play it like a violin, let each exposure sink in for a week or so until it's just at the brink of being old news, then build into a crescendo to really emphasize the overall scandal

depends what else he's got in his pocket but everything he's said suggests that revelations so far are just the tip of the iceberg. lately he's continued to hammer home on the falseness of Obama's claims that a) nobody's listening to your phones and b) if they do it goes through a legal judicial process. his last two articles are about how empty that process really is given the rubber stamp nature of the FISA court.

im hoping the next series might well involve international / cyber warfare stuff. so far all i've really seen regarding "state on state" style spying is the UK/US maneuvers at the summit and the snapshot of "boundless informant" which tracks amount of data the US takes from each country

if the guardian starts wading into that territory, greenwald/snowden may have a tougher time denying those "harming national security" / "aiding the enemy" charges that so far they haven't slipped into. i still wanna hear all about it of course lol

edit: apparently iceland is also a conceivable destination, they aren't so friendly with the US after the financial meltdown left them in ruins tho they haven't committed to granting asylum. an icelandish business man supposedly had a jet ready to take Snowden straight there from the mainland before he took off to russia

Derka

06-23-2013 01:43 PM

Re: NSA whistleblower Snowden arrives in Moscow

Headline startled me for a second there. Putin's ballsy but if it was a dude leaking Russian state secrets, you can bet your ass he'd want him back pronto.

assuming china has sufficient leverage in HK, it does seem like they're playing with fire letting him walk. their banking system is *extremely* fragile from what i've read, and i'm not sure they really want to destabilise their #1 trading partner in any way, shape or form. *shrug*

thank god i don't follow politics.

ace23

06-23-2013 04:45 PM

Re: NSA whistleblower Snowden arrives in Moscow

So that's who this guy is. Been seeing his face everywhere lately.

Done_And_Done

06-23-2013 04:54 PM

Re: NSA whistleblower Snowden arrives in Moscow

Quote:

Originally Posted by RidonKs

edit: apparently iceland is also a conceivable destination, they aren't so friendly with the US after the financial meltdown left them in ruins tho they haven't committed to granting asylum. an icelandish business man supposedly had a jet ready to take Snowden straight there from the mainland before he took off to russia

Im hearing much the same. It wouldn't be the first time Iceland harboured an American refugee either {Bobby FIscher etc}

Blue&Orange

06-23-2013 05:12 PM

Re: NSA whistleblower Snowden arrives in Moscow

I don't get why he needs to be on the run, governments work for the people, they are people's employees, the fact they become this private club for half of dozen people, that act like they own what they have and create this obscure agencies that respond to no one, and people not only are ok with it, but label traitor when someone expose their fascist plans it's mind boggling, i guess as long there's fried chicken...

assuming china has sufficient leverage in HK, it does seem like they're playing with fire letting him walk. their banking system is *extremely* fragile from what i've read, and i'm not sure they really want to destabilise their #1 trading partner in any way, shape or form. *shrug*

thank god i don't follow politics.

Their banking system doesn't have much, if anything, to do with the US anyway, and what is the US going to do in terms of trade, cut off their own citizen's goods and services? Anyway, in this regard, it should be largely HK's government calling the shots, rather than central.

Jailblazers7

06-23-2013 05:19 PM

Re: NSA whistleblower Snowden arrives in Moscow

Quote:

Originally Posted by brantonli

Their banking system doesn't have much, if anything, to do with the US anyway, and what is the US going to do in terms of trade, cut off their own citizen's goods and services? Anyway, in this regard, it should be largely HK's government calling the shots, rather than central.

Yeah, the US doesn't really have any leverage in that situation economically. The shit happening with the Shibor is really interesting tho for the banking system in China. It certainly brings a lot of China's economic problems to light that the US press likes to ignore.

gigantes

06-23-2013 05:56 PM

Re: NSA whistleblower Snowden arrives in Moscow

Quote:

Originally Posted by brantonli

Their banking system doesn't have much, if anything, to do with the US anyway, and what is the US going to do in terms of trade, cut off their own citizen's goods and services? Anyway, in this regard, it should be largely HK's government calling the shots, rather than central.

no no, ships passing in the night on that thought.

i simply meant that the way markets and economies impact each other so greatly these days, i would think no major player should want any significant destabilisation in any economy anywhere in the world, but china must be particularly sensitive right now. they should want as much stability and status quo as possible.

if snowden continues to cause problems for the US, who knows what the full fallout of that would be? i could easily see it impacting US markets, at the least. trade wouldn't directly be an issue, although if the dollar slumped, say, that could actually help the china banks with their liquidity problem as i understand it. so i guess it could sort of swing either way, but in any case should be a very calculated move if they have their heads on straight.

of course i don't actually know if any of this holds water unless someone who sees where i'm coming from can respond.

kNicKz

06-23-2013 06:33 PM

Re: NSA whistleblower Snowden arrives in Moscow

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blue&Orange

I don't get why he needs to be on the run, governments work for the people, they are people's employees, the fact they become this private club for half of dozen people, that act like they own what they have and create this obscure agencies that respond to no one, and people not only are ok with it, but label traitor when someone expose their fascist plans it's mind boggling, i guess as long there's fried chicken...

^^ this **** the government

falc39

06-23-2013 07:03 PM

Re: NSA whistleblower Snowden arrives in Moscow

Remember that women's soccer finals against that Japan team that went through some horrible natural disasters? I was rooting for USA, obviously. It's like watching the Mighty ducks 2 and rooting for Iceland. I hate that feeling. We are the bad guys in this situation...